[Hoe, Robert]
A short history of the
printing press.
A Short History of
The Printing Press
And of the Improvements
Printing Machinery from the
Time of Gutenberg up
to the Present Da\
in
PRINTED AND PUBLISH I I) FOR
ROBERT HOE
NEW YORK.
1902
A Short History of
The Printing Press
A Short History of
The Printing Press
And of the Improvements in
Printing Machinery from the
Time of Gutenberg up
to the Present Day
FROM A MEDAL BY SCHARFF OF VIENNA
PRINTED AND PUBLISHED FOR
ROBERT HOE
NEW YORK
1902
FUST AND tCHOEFFE
\vysiClN DE WOIDC
THE PRINTING PRESS
A3UT the year 1450, Gutenberg was engaged in printing
his first book from movable types. No method of taking
the impressions simpler than that employed by him can be
imagined, unless it be with a " buffer," or by means of a brush
rubbed over the paper laid upon the " form " of type, after the
manner of the Chinese in printing from engraved blocks. His
printing press consisted of two upright timbers, with cross pieces of
wood to stay them together at the top and bottom. There were
also intermediate cross timbers, one of which supported the flat
"bed" upon which the type was placed, and through another a
wooden screw passed, its lower point resting on the centre of a
wooden " platen," which was thus screwed down upon the type.
After inking the form with a ball of leather stuffed with wool, the
printer spread the paper over it, laying a piece of blanket upon the
paper to soften the impression of the platen and remove inequalities.
This was the machine which Gutenberg used. The mechanical
principle embodied in it was found in the old cheese and linen
presses ordinarily seen in the houses of medieval times.
Were Gutenberg called upon to print his Bible to-day he
would find virtually the same type ready for his purpose as that
THK EARLIEST FORM OF PRINTING I'RKSS
made by him, no change
having taken place in its
general conformation ; but
he would be bewildered in
the maze of printing ma-
chinery of the beginning of
the twentieth century.
The simple form of
wooden press, worked with
a screw by means of a mov-
able bar, continued in use
for about one hundred and
rifty years, or until the
early part of the seven-
teenth century, without any
material change. The forms
of type were placed upon
the same wooden and some-
times stone beds, incased in frames called "coffins," moved in and
out laboriously by hand, and after each impression the platen had
to be screwed up with the bar so that the paper which had been
printed upon it might be removed and hung up to dry.
The first recorded improvements in this press were made by
William Jensen Blaew, a printer of Amsterdam, some time about
1620. They consisted in passing the spindle of the screw through
a square block which was guided in the wooden frame, and from
this block the platen was suspended by wires or cords; the block, or
box, preventing any twist in the platen, and insuring a more equal
motion to the screw. He also placed a device upon the press for
rolling in and out the bed, and added a new form of iron hand lever
for turning the screw. Blaew's press was introduced into England,
and used there as well as on the continent, being substantially the
THE EARLIEST FORM OF PRINTING PRESS
THE BLAEW PRESS
same as that Benjamin Franklin worked upon as a journeyman in
London, early in the last century.
Little further im-
provement was made in
the printing press before
the year 1798, when the
Earl of Stanhope caused
one to be made, the
frame of which, instead
of being ot wood, was
one piece of cast-iron.
A necessity had arisen
for greater power in giv-
ing the impression, es-
pecially in the printing
of woodcuts, and the
tendency was naturally
toward larger forms of
type, requiring greater
exertion on the part of the printer; the labor in working one of the
old screw presses was about equal to that of the plowman in the
field. The Earl of Stanhope reserved the screw, but caused to be
added a combination of levers to assist the pressman in gaining
greater power, when giving the impression, with less expenditure of
energy. These machines were very heavy and extremely cumber-
some. They were the first iron printing presses ever constructed, and
came into use to some extent. The printers, seizing upon this new
idea of a combination of levers to increase the power, were induced
to place them upon their wooden presses, the improvement resulting
generally in the destruction of the latter, which were not adapted
to stand the strain. The iron platen employed by the Earl of Stan-
hope had, however, previously been used upon the wooden presses.
THE BLAEW PRESS
STAN HO 1> K PRESS
The next practical improvement was made by George Clymer
of Philadelphia, who, about i S i 6, devised an iron machine, entirely
dispensing with a screw. A long, heavy cast-iron lever was placed
over the platen, one end attached to one of the uprights of the cast-
iron frame, and the other susceptible of being raised and lowered
by a combination of smaller lev-
ers, worked by the pressman after
the manner of the ordinary hand
press. The impression was given
and the platen raised and lowered
by a spindle, or pin, attached to
the centre of the large cross lever
at the top, this being properly
balanced to facilitate its being
raised with greater ease. Mr.
Clymer carried his invention to
England, where it was introduced
to some extent and was known as
the " Columbian " press.
In England there were iron
hand presses made by Rutheven, by
Brown and by others, all, more
or less, improvements upon the Stanhope.
In 1822 Peter Smith, an American, connected with the firm
of R. Hoe & Co. in New York, devised a machine which was in
many respects superior to any up to that time. The frame
was of cast-iron, and in place of the screw with levers, he substi-
tuted a toggle joint, at once simple and effective.
In 1827, however, Samuel Rust of New York, perfected an
invention which was a great improvement on the Smith press. The
frame, instead of being all of cast-iron, had the uprights at the sides
hollowed for the admission of wrought-iron bars, which were
STANHOPE PRESS
CLYMER'S COLUMBIAN PRESS
CLYMER'S COLUMBIAN PRESS
securely riveted at the top
and bottom of the casting.
This gave not only additional
strength, but greatly dimin-
ished the amount of metal
used in construction. This
patent was purchased by
R. Hoe & Co., who im-
proved upon it, and pro-
ceeded with the manufacture
of the presses, although the
" Smith" continued to be
used to some extent. The
new invention was known as
the " Washington " press, and
in principle and construction
has never been surpassed by
any hand printing machine.
They were manufactured in
great numbers, and continue
to be manufactured and sold
at the present time for taking
fine proofs, although the uni-
versal adoption of the cylin-
der press has almost entirely
superseded them for other
printing. The number made
and sold by Hoe & Co.
. . r . PETER SMITH HAND PRESS
alone, a majority or which
are now in use, is over six thousand. They have been sent all over
the world. This style of press is made in seven sizes.
The following is a description of this press : The bed slides on
W ASH I N CiTON H AND I' R i
a track and is run in and out from under the
platen by turning a crank which has belts
attached to a pulley upon its shaft. The im-
pression of the platen is given by
means of a curved lever acting on
a toggle joint, and the platen is
lifted by- springs on either side.
Attached to the bed is a
" tympan " frame covered
with cloth, and standing in-
clined, to receive the sheet
to be printed. Another
frame, called the "frisket,"
is attached to the tympan,
and covered with a sheet
of paper, having the parts
which otherwise would be
printed upon cut away, so as to prevent the " chase " and " furniture "
from blacking or soiling the sheet. The frisket is turned down over
the sheet and tympan and all are folded down when the impression
is taken. Automatic inking rollers were attached to this machine,
operated by a weight raised by the pull of the pressman, the descent
of the weight drawing the rollers over the type and returning them
to the inking cylinder while the pressman placed another sheet
upon the tympan. Still further improvements in this inking ap-
paratus were made and patented by Hoe & Co., in which the dis-
tribution of the ink on the rollers was effected by means of an ap-
paratus driven by steam power and which also caused the inking
rollers to move forward over the type at the will of the pressman.
The bed and platen system of printing was, up to the middle
of the nineteenth century, the favorite method of printing fine
books and cuts. The first " power " or steam press upon this prin-
WASHINGTON HAND PRESS
TREADWELL'S PLATEN POWER PRESS
ciple was made by Daniel Treadwell, of Boston, in 1822. The
frames were of wood, and it does not appear that more than three
or four of these were ever constructed. The best machines of this
description were those devised and patented by Isaac Adams, of Bo--
ton, in 1 830 and 1836, and by Otis Tufts, of the same place, in 1 834.
TREADWELLS WOODEN-FRAME BED AND PLATEN POWER PRESS
They were first made with wooden and afterward with iron frames.
In 1858 Adams's business became the property of Hoe 6c Co., who
continued to manufacture the machines with added improvements.
In all more than a thousand, in no less than fifty-seven sizes, were
sold for use in the United States, some being sent to other coun-
tries. In these machines, the type is placed upon an iron bed, after
the usual manner of the hand press, and this bed is raised and low-
ered by straightening and bending a toggle joint by means of a cam.
ISAAC ADAMS'S BED AND PLATEN PRESS
thus giving the impression upon the iron platen fixed above it, and
firmly held in position by upright iron rods .secured to the bottom
bar, a .strong cross-piece, at the base of the machine. The ink
fountain is at one end of the press; the inking rollers travel twice
over the form, in a movable frisket frame, while the bed is down ;
the paper is taken in by grippers on the frisket and carried over the
form, when the bed rises and the impression is given; and finally
the sheets pass forward from the frisket by tapes to a sheet flier,
which delivers them on the fly board. One thousand sheets per hour
is the maximum speed of the larger sizes of the Adams press. Al-
though many of these machines were made and great numbers are
still used, and notwithstanding the fact that it was thought by many
experienced printers that fine book and cut work could be done in
no other way than by flat pressure, this system of printing has given
place to that of the cylinder press.
The idea of printing from plates or forms carried upon a flat
bed beneath a cylinder was not a new one, having been employed
by printers of copper-plate engravings in the fifteenth century.
Their machines, however, were rude in form, and made of wood,
the roller revolving in stationary bearings, while the bed, with the plate
upon it and carrying the paper, covered by a blanket, on its surface,
moved backward and forward under the roller. The inking was
done by hand with balls. With the inauguration of this system of
printing from type or forms placed upon a flat bed moved forwards
and backwards under a revolving cylinder, commenced an entirely
new era in the history of the printing press. It should be under-
stood, however, that the vast number of patents granted for printing
machines in which the cylinder is connected with the bed, or by
the operation of two cylinders together, one holding the form and
the other giving the impression, are almost all for improvements
and devices of detail, the radical principles upon which these are
founded remaining the same. Thus, Sir Rowland Hill, in the early
THE FIRST CYLINDER PRESS
part of the nineteenth century, projected a machine tor printing
from an endless roll, or " web " of paper ; and in 1790 an English-
man named William Nicholson (author, inventor, patent agent,
editor and school teacher] took out a patent covering the idea of
cylinder presses in which the forms should be placed upon either a
flat bed or cylinder at will and receive the impression from a cylin-
der covered with cloth or some similar material. Between the bed
and cylinder, or between the two cylinders, the sheet was to be fed
in and printed. The ink was to be put on by a roller built up of
cloth and covered with leather. There is, however, a great differ-
ence between an actual invention and a scheme. If the simple
proposition advanced to make a machine upon this principle, without
its consummation, or without any press being produced, can be
considered an invention, then Nicholson may (as a writer on the
subject states) have been " so far ahead of his time as to leap over
three generations " by his invention. As a matter of fact, however,
his patents were mostly schemes, and little more, as a moment's
reflection will convince. He did not know how to curve the plates
to be put upon the cylinders, nor how to secure them properly for
good work in fact, he did not know how to make the plates in
any practicable manner. All these questions remained to be solved
in order that the printing press might be an invention. On this
account, therefore, I do not give descriptions of proposals to make
machines, but of presses that have been actually made, and used
sufficiently to entitle them to recognition as practical improvements
exemplifying the progressive evolution of the printing press.
The foundation and growth of newspapers first published peri-
odically, and finally each day, created a demand for machines which
should print with rapidity, and fine work was delegated for the
time being to the flat bed and platen press, most of it, as has been
seen, being turned out upon the hand press.
The credit of actually introducing into use a flat bed Cylinder
THE KOENIG CYLINDER PRESS
Press is due to a Saxon named Friederich KocMiig, who visited England
in 1806, and through the assistance of Thomas Bensley, a printer
in London, devised a machine which in 18121813 was worked
by him, .and printed, among other publications, a part of " Clark-
son's Life of William Penn." Koenig was assisted by a mechanic
named Andrew Bauer, a fellow-countryman. The form of type
was placed on a flat bed, the cylinder above it having a three-fold
motion, or stopping three times ; the first third of the turn receiv-
ing the sheet upon one of the tympans and securing it by the
frisket ; the second giving the impression and allowing the sheet
to be removed by hand, and the third returning the tympan empty
to receive another sheet.
These men also devised what has proved, even to this day, to
be a most efficient reciprocating motion of the type bed. It con-
sists of a pinion carried on the inner end of a long shaft which is
turned by gearing from the outside of the press frame and has in its
length a universal joint, allowing an up-and-down motion of the
pinion as it revolves. To the outer end of the shaft the wheel con-
necting with the impression cylinder is attached. Underneath the
bed and fastened to it is a " rack," or a row of teeth, with a crescent-
shaped segment of hard metal at each end. In this rack, in addition
to the teeth, are pins, or studs, at each end. The wheel before referred
to, at the outer end of the shaft, being set in motion revolves the
pinion and moves the bed by means of the teeth in this rack. At
the proper moment, calling for the reversal of the bed, the pinion
turns around over one of the pins or studs, against the segment on
the rack, and immediately re-engages its teeth in the opposite side
of the rack, so carrying the bed back again. This motion is
repeated at the opposite end of the rack, and the bed again stopped
and returned by the pinion revolving against the segment and again
over the rack, thus giving a reciprocating motion to the bed.
In 1814 Koenig patented a continuously revolving Cylinder
16
THE KOENIG CYLINDER PRESS
Press. The part of the periphery of the cylinder not used for
giving the impression is slightly reduced in diameter, so as to allow
the form to return under it freely after giving an impression. He
showed designs adapting it for use as a single Cylinder Press, and
also a two Cylinder Press, both for printing one side of the paper at
a time ; likewise a two Cylinder Press for printing both sides of the
paper at one operation. In this later press, the two forms were
placed one at each end of a long bed, and the paper after being
printed on one side by one cylinder, was carried by tapes over a
registering roller to the other cylinder, where it was printed upon
the reverse side. This press, termed a " perfecting press," was
afterwards improved by Applegath & Cowper so as to be a very
efficient machine.
Koenig erected in the office of the London " Times " in 1814
two of the two Cylinder Presses mentioned above, which printed on
one side of the paper only, at the rate of 800 sheets per hour.
Koenig, however, was not alone in his efforts to perfect a
Cylinder Press. Various patents were gotten out by Bacon & Donkin
in 1813; by Cowper in 1 8 1 6 and again in 1 8 1 8 ; and by Apple-
gath in 1818. But the most ingenious and practical device in
connection with the movements of a flat bed and a cylinder for
printing machines was patented by Napier in 1828 and 1830. He
was the first who introduced " grippers," or "fihgers," for the con-
veyance of the sheets around the cylinder during the impression, and
for delivering them after printing. Tapes or strings had previously
been employed for this purpose. He was also the first to manufacture
presses in which the impression cylinders are of small size and make
two or more revolutions to each sheet printed, and he devised the
toggles for bringing the cylinders down to print on the form and
for raising them to let the form run back without touching.
The news of these later inventions reached New York in due
time, and in 1832 Robert Hoe, who had been some time established
7
SINGLE SMALL CYLINDER PRESS
in the manufacture of printing presses, sent a young man, Sereno
Newton (whom he afterwards took in partnership with him), to
SINGLE SMALL CYLINDER PRESS
DOUBLE CYLINDER PRESS
England to investigate the subject and see what improvements were
worthy of adoption. The result was the construction of the
ii
SINGLE LARGE CYLINDER PRESS
SINGLE LARGE CYLINDER PRESS
machines known as the " Single Small Cylinder " and " Double
Small Cylinder," also the large Cylinder " Perfecting " Press, which
have continued, with many alterations and improvements, to be
manufactured up to the present time.
Hoe & Co. had previously made the first flat bed and cylinder
press ever used in the United States. It was the pattern known as the
" Single Large Cylinder," the whole circumference of the cylinder
being equivalent to the entire travel of the bed forwards and back-
wards, the cylinder making one revolution for each impression in
printing, without stopping. Only a portion of the cylinder was em-
ployed to take the impression, the remainder of its circumference being
'9
SINGLE LARGE CYLINDER PRESS
turned down small enough to allow the type on the bed to pass back
under it without touching. Hundreds of these machines were made
and are now in use, and they are still made at the present day,
with patented sheet fliers and other devices and improvements in the
methods of manufacture. Other similar presses were made later by
the press-makers A. B. Taylor, A. Campbell, C. B. Cottrell, and
C. Potter, Jr.
The patented sheet flier before referred to, and which was
used on the "Adams " bed and platen press, was greatly improved
by Hoe & Co. and placed upon all their cylinder presses.
Before proceeding further with an account of the faster news-
paper presses, it may be well to complete the history of machines
employed up to this time for book, job and woodcut printing. For
this purpose the "Single Large Cylinder," already described, was
first used. In England there were the" Napier " presses, the "Wharf-
dale " and many others, all involving the same general principle, and
capable of turning out more or less satisfactory work, in proportion
to the perfection of their construction and the skill of those operat-
ing them. Most of the English machines, however, show defects in
mechanical construction. In fact, the supremacy of the American
printing press is maintained in a large measure by the simplicity,
accuracy and perfection of its mechanism. Foreign presses, made
by the cheap labor of Europe, have been repeatedly brought to this
country and introduced into printing offices. They have never,
however, lasted long, most of them having perished in the using or
been found unprofitable.
There have been various modifications of the principle under-
lying the Napier movement for flat-bed presses, i. e., having the
driving wheel engage the rack at all times, reversing the movement
by turning about the ends of the rack and driving the bed alter-
nately in opposite directions.
As early as 1 847 Hoe & Co. patented an entirely new bed
THE MIEHLE PRESS
driving mechanism. To a hanger fixed on the lower side of the
bed were attached two racks facing each other, but not in the same
vertical plane, and separated by a distance equal to the diameter of
the driving wheel, which was on a horizontal shaft and movable
sideways so as to engage in either one or other of the racks. By
this means, a uniform movement was obtained in each direction.
The reversal of the bed was accomplished by a roller at either
end of the bed entering a recess in a disc on the driving shaft,
which in a half revolution brought the bed to a stop and started it
in the opposite direction.
This involved a new principle; a crank action operating di-
rectly upon the bed from a shaft having a fixed centre, and within
recent years modifications of this patent have been successfully
employed to drive the type bed at a high velocity and reverse it
without shock or vibration.
The "Miehle" Press is a modified form of this movement;
the crank pin or roller is attached to the side of the bed wheel,
and at the ends of the uniform movement it is enclosed within the
walls of a vertical guideway formed at each end of the rack sup-
porting frame, and passes through the length of this guide as it
performs its function of reversing the bed.
An improvement in this class of bed motions has lately been
made and patented by Hoe & Co. In this machine the crank pin,
which controls the reversal of the motion of the type bed, moves in
a rectilinear instead of a circular pathway. As the motion of the
crank is thus directly in line with the travel of the bed, it is possible
to lock the journal box, enclosing the pin, securely to the bed, while
the bed is being controlled by the action of the crank, and thereby
avoids the friction and consequent wear of parts that occur when
the crank pin moves in a circular line. The movement of the
crank is obtained from the rotatory motion of the bed wheel, and
has the same varying velocities as would be derived from a crank
STOP CYLINDER LITHOGRAPHIC PRESS
traveling in a circular pathway. It, therefore, checks the momen-
tum of the bed with ease, brings the bed to rest, and returns it
with an accelerating motion while under positive control. The
wearing of parts is thus reduced to the minimum, insuring an ac-
curacy of register and exactness of motion hitherto unattainable.
A press with a bed measuring 48 x 65 inches runs without jar or
vibration at a speed of 1,800 impressions an hour.
The press of the present day from which the finest letterpress
and woodcut work is turned off is known as the "Stop Cylinder."
This was devised and patented by a Frenchman named Dutartre,
in 1852, and introduced into this country about 1853 by Hoe &
Co., who have since patented many improvements upon it. It was a
surprise to many printers to find that this machine could do work
which heretofore it had been supposed the hand press only was
capable of performing.
The Stop Cylinder Press may be described as follows: The
type is secured upon a traveling iron bed, which moves back and
forth upon friction rollers of steel, the bed being driven by a simple
crank motion, stopping and starting it without noise or jar. All
the running portions of this bed are made of fine steel as hard as it
can be worked. The cylinder is stopped by a cam motion pend-
ing the backward travel of the bed, and during the interval of
rest the sheet is fed down against the guides and the grippers
closed upon it before the cylinder starts, thus insuring the utmost
accuracy of register. After the impression, the sheet is trans-
ferred to a skeleton cylinder, also containing grippers, which re-
ceives, and delivers it, over fine cords, upon the sheet flier, which in
turn deposits it upon the table. The distribution of the ink is
effected partly by a vibrating, polished, steel cylinder, and partly
upon a flat table at the end of the traveling bed, the number of form-
inking rollers varying from four to six. This is without doubt the
most perfect flat bed cylinder printing machine that has ever been
ROTARY ZINCOGRAPHIC PRESS
devised. It is made in various sizes. The average output of one
of these presses with a bed 36x54 inches is from 1,000 to 1,500
impressions per hour.
The demand being constantly for machines taking on larger
sized forms, there has been lately constructed and patented by R.
Hoe & Co. an entirely new Stop Cylinder Press, having a bed 45 x 62
inches, and which can be run at a speed of i ,700 impressions an hour.
The main points of difference between the Stop Cylinder Press for
type forms and the Lithographic Press is in the form of the bed only,
the other portions, including the driving apparatus, being almost
identical ; therefore the same general description applies to these
new machines for both classes of work. A great objection to flat-
bed presses of large size has always been the height of the cylinder
from the floor, necessitated by the increased dimensions of the driv-
ing apparatus under the bed. In these new presses the bed is recip-
rocated as usual by a crank motion, but made exceptionally strong
and compounded. This method of construction not only gives the
increased speed but makes the bed of the machine low down, so
that it is better under the hand and eye of the operator. The
product of the machine is delivered printed side up, Sy a patented
take-ofF apparatus, which takes the sheets from the impression cyl-
inder by grippers in a reciprocating carriage and deposits them
upon a table. No tapes or guides come in contact with the freshly
printed ink.
Keeping pace with the improved methods and machines
employed in typographic printing, and influenced thereby, the litho-
graphic and kindred branches of printing have also made progress,
induced mainly, however, by the general striving for more rapid
and economical production. This has been accomplished by using
larger stones, paper and machines, and by employing rotary ma-
chines for some work. The use of curved stones for lithography
being impracticable for many reasons, a substitute was found in
TWO-COLOR ROTARY PRESSES
plates or sheets made of zinc or aluminum, which, when properly
prepared, possess properties akin to those in lithographic stones.
Being flexible, these sheets are easily stretched over the curved sur-
face of a cylinder. Although the development of this branch or'
printing is due, chiefly, to the French and Germans, much has
been done in this country toward its improvement, and work is
produced upon Rotary Zincographic or Aluminum Presses that
compares favorably with that produced from stones, and at double
the speed. The smaller of these presses, printing only one color at
a time, prints on sheets 30 x 44 inches, at a speed up to 2,000 im-
pressions per hour ; the larger presses of the same kind print on
sheets 44 x 64 inches, at a speed up to i ,700 impressions per hour,
although the machines may be run even faster, according to the
dexterity of the feeder.
Two-Color Rotary Presses are in successful operation in dif-
ferent parts of this country. In these machines there are two plate
cylinders and one impression cylinder, each of the plate cylinders
having its own inking and dampening appliances. The sheet of
paper, after being fed to the grippers of the impression cylinder,
receives one printing from the first plate cylinder, and a second
printing, in a different color, from the second plate cylinder, and is
then released from the grippers and delivered in the usual manner
by the sheet flier. The size of the sheets printed is 44 x 64 inches,
and running at a speed of 1,700 revolutions per hour, the number
of printings is 3,400, or double that obtained from the one-color
machine of the same size.
We now return to a further consideration of the newspaper press.
The " Single Small Cylinder " and " Double Small Cylinder "
machines heretofore described as primarily the invention of Napier,
and perfected by Hoe & Co. and made by them, came into general
use in the United States. In construction and for the quantity and
quality of work produced they excelled any made in England ; the
18
ROTARY TYPE-REVOLVING PRESS
output of one of the "Single Cylinder" presses reaching 2,000
impressions per hour, or about as fast as the feeder could lay down
the sheets. When still greater speed was required the " Double
Cylinder " press was used, the travel of the bed being of such length
that the form of type passed backward and forward under both cyl-
inders. Two feeders accordingly put in the sheets ; the maximum
speed obtained being about 2,000 from each cylinder, or 4,000 from
the two cylinders per hour, printed on one side. It was evident,
both in England and America, that something faster must be
devised. The growing demand for papers containing the latest
news necessitated increasing effort on the part of the machine-
makers. The presses of Dryden & Ford, Middleton, and others
in England failed to meet the requirements there, as did the
"Single" and Double" Cylinders in America.
In 1845 an d 1846 the firm of R. Hoe & Co. in New York
were busily engaged upon plans and inventions for presses which
should meet the increased requirements of the newspapers in America.
The result was the construction of a press known as the " Hoe Type
Revolving Machine," embodying patents taken out by Richard M.
Hoe. The first one of these machines was placed in the "Ledger"
office in Philadelphia, in i 846. The basis of these inventions con-
sisted in an apparatus for securely fastening the forms of type on a
central cylinder placed in a horizontal position. This was accom-
plished by the construction of cast-iron beds, one for each page of
the newspaper. The column rules were made " V ' ' shaped ; i. e.,
tapering toward the feet of the type. It was found that, with proper
arrangement for locking up or securing the type upon these beds, it
could be held firmly in position, the surface form a true circle, and
the cylinder revolved at any speed required without danger of the
type falling out. Around this central cylinder from four to ten
impression cylinders, according to the output required, were grouped.
The sheets were fed in by boys, and taken from the feed board
3 1
ROTARY TYPE-REVOLVING PRESS
by automatic grippers, or ringers, operated by cams in the impres-
sion cylinders, and which conveyed them around against the revolv-
ing form of the central cylinder. Here again a great advantage was
gained by the use of the patented sheet rlier, consisting of a row of
long wooden fingers fastened to the shaft, and operated by a cam and
springs; the sheet after printing being conducted out underneath
each feed board by means of tapes to the sheet fliers, which laid
them in piles on tables ; the number of fliers and tables correspond-
ing to the number of impression cylinders. The inking was accomp-
lished by the use of composition rollers placed between each of the
impression cylinders ; the fountain being below, underneath the
main type cylinder. The portion of the surface of this type cylin-
der, not occupied by the type itself, was utilized as a distributing
table, its surface being lower than that of the type, and the inking
rollers rising and falling alternately to place the ink on the type and
receive a new supply from the distributing surface. The first of
these presses had only four impression cylinders, necessitating four
boys to feed the sheets. The running speed obtained was about
2,000 sheets to each feeder per hour, thus giving, with what was
called a " Four Feeder" or "Four Cylinder" machine, a running
capacity of about 8,000 papers, per hour, printed upon one side. As
the demands of the newspapers increased, more impression cylinders
were added, until these machines were made with as many as ten
grouped around the central cylinder, giving an aggregate speed of
about 20,000 papers per hour printed upon one side. A revolution
in newspaper printing took place. Journals which before had been
limited in their circulation by their inability to furnish the papers
rapidly increased their issues, and many new ones were started. The
new presses were adopted not only throughout the United States, but
also in Great Britain. The first one put up abroad was erected
in 1848, in the office of "La Patrie" in Paris, but the downfall of
the Republic and the re-imposition of a stamp duty, soon put
ROTARY TYPE-REVOLVING PRESS
an end to all enterprise in French newspaper publishing. The
English, always slow to adopt improvements, did not appreciate
the value of these presses until the year 1856, when Edward Lloyd
of " Lloyd's Weekly Newspaper " in London, having seen the one
in the office of "La Patrie," ordered a " Six-Cylinder" machine.
This was erected in his office in Salisbury Square, Fleet Street, Lon-
don, in the following year. It was no sooner in operation and
seen by the other newspaper proprietors than orders were received
from the London " Times " for two " Ten-Cylinder " presses, to
replace the Applegath machine they were then using. The
order for these machines was a gratifying tribute to American
ingenuity, for the "Times" in December, 1848, in an article on
the starting of the Applegath vertical cylinder press, stated that " No
art of packing could make the type adhere to a cylinder revolving
around a horizontal axis and thereby aggravating centrifugal impulse
by the intrinsic weight of the metal." Eventually orders from
almost all of the leading newspapers in Great Britain and Ireland
were received.
In the meantime various experiments had demonstrated the
possibility of casting stereotype plates on a curve. The process
was brought to perfection by the use of flexible paper matrices,
upon which the metal was cast in curved moulds to any circle de-
sired, and these plates were placed upon the Hoe " Type Revolving
Machine" upon beds adapted to receive them instead of the type forms.
The newspaper publishers were thus enabled to duplicate the forms,
and run several machines at the same time with a view of turning
out the papers with greater rapidity. In some large offices, such
as the New York " Herald," London " Daily Telegraph," and the
London " Standard," as many as five of these machines were in
constant operation. About this time the stamp duty in England
of one penny upon each sheet of printed matter was repealed. This
in itself aided materially in the development of the newspaper press.
37
APPLEGATH'S TYPE-REVOLVING PRESS
After the return of Koenig to Germany, an Englishman named
Applegath, in connection with a machinist named C'owper, made
various improvements, mostly in the way of simplifying Koenig's
presses. After many experiments, they in 1848 constructed for the
London "Times" an elaborate machine, entirely upon the cylindri-
cal principle. All of the cylinders of this machine instead of being
horizontal, as in presses heretofore used, were vertical The type
was placed upon a large upright central cylinder, but the circum-
ference instead of presenting a complete circle represented as many
flat surfaces as there were columns in the newspaper, the forms thus
being polygonal. Around this central or form cylinder were
placed eight smaller vertical cylinders for taking the impression,
inking rollers being introduced to ink the type as it passed alter-
nately from one of these impression cylinders to another. The
sheets were fed down by hand from eight flat horizontal feed-boards
through tapes ; then grasped by another set of tapes and passed side-
ways between the impression cylinder and the type cylinder, thus
obtaining sheets printed upon one side. The impression cylinder
delivered them, still in a vertical position, into the hands of boys,
one stationed at each cylinder to receive them. The results ob-
tained from this machine were in a measure satisfactory, as the
number of papers printed per hour upon one side, from one form
of type, was materially increased ; not, however, in proportion
to the number of impression cylinders placed around it, as the
press at its best could produce but 8,000 impressions per hour,
on one side of the sheets. Having devised no means to lock
up the type other than in flat columns, the polygonal form was
a necessity, and the irregularities in it were made up by under-
laying the blankets on the impression cylinders to take up these
inequalities. Although this press, used in the London "Times"
office, was the only one of the kind ever made, its size and
importance warrant some record and description of it. This
X JU7 .
39
BULLOCK PRESS
machine was taken out to make way for Hoe Type Revolving
Presses.
In 1835 Sir Rowland Hill had suggested the possibilities of a
machine which should print both sides at once from a roll of paper.
It is well known that for many years cotton cloths had been printed
in this way, the cylinders being engraved and the cloth after print-
ing being reeled up again. The suggestion, however, was accom-
panied by no practical knowledge as to the details, and, above all, no
practical provision for the rapid cutting off and delivery of the
paper either before or after it had been printed. It remained for an
American, William Bullock, of Philadelphia, to construct, in 1865,
the first printing machine to print from a continuous web or roll of
paper. His machine consisted of two pairs of cylinders, i. e., two form
or plate cylinders and two impression cylinders. The second impres-
sion cylinder was made of large size to provide additional tympan
surface, to lessen the offset from the first printed side of the paper.
The stereotype plates were not made to fill the whole circumference
of each of the form cylinders, as the sheets were cut before print-
ing. One difficulty he had to contend with was the cutting off of
the sheets with sufficient accuracy and rapidity. This he accomp-
lished by severing them by means of knives in cylinders. The
sheets were then carried through the press by tapes and fingers, and
delivery sought to be accomplished by means of a series of auto-
matic metal nippers placed upon endless leather belts at such distance
apart as to grasp each sheet successively as it came from the last
printing cylinders. This machine was put up in several offices and
rejected because of its unreliability, especially in the delivery of the
papers, but it was finally so far perfected that it came into use to a
considerable extent.
Meanwhile the proprietors of the London "Times" inaugu-
rated experiments with the view of making a rotary perfecting press,
and finally started the first one in that office about 1868. It was
41
LONDON TIMES ROTARY MACHINE
similar in construction to the "Bullock " press so far as the print-
ing apparatus was concerned, excepting that the cylinders were all
of one size and placed one above the other. The sheets were sev-
ered after printing, brought up by tapes, and carried down to a
sheet flier which moved back and forth, and " flirted" the sheets
alternately into the hands of two boys seated opposite one another
on either side of the sheet flier.
Marinoni, of Paris, also devised a machine on a similar principle,
making the impression and the form cylinder of one size, and
placed them one above the other. The "Marinoni" machine had
separate fly boards for the delivery of the sheets.
In 1871 R. Hoe & Co. also turned their attention to the con-
struction of a rotary perfecting press to print from a roll or con-
tinuous web of paper.
As before stated, the greatest difficulties to be encountered
were:
First. The set-off of the first side.
Devices were used to overcome this and the ink-makers were
induced to pay special attention to the manufacture of rapid-drying
or non-setting-ofF inks.
Second. The difficulties in obtaining paper in the roll of uni-
form perfection and strength. The paper-makers were led to make
a study of producing large rolls of paper meeting these require-
ments, and became much more experienced in its manufacture.
The "Walter" press in the "Times" office had necessitated a very
strong and expensive paper, which could not be afforded by the
cheap daily press.
Third. The difficulty of the rapid severing of the sheets after
printing.
Fourth. A reliable and accurate delivery of the printed
papers.
These last two operations were not accomplished satisfactorily
43
45
FIRST HOE WEB PRESS
until the appearance of the Hoe machine. In this press the sheets
were not entirely severed by the cutters, but simply perforated after
the printing. They were then drawn by accelerating tapes, which
completely separated them, onto a gathering cylinder so constructed
that six perfect papers, or any other desired number, could be
gathered one over the other. These, by means of a switch, were
at the proper moment turned off onto one sheet flier, which de-
posited them on the receiving board. This gathering and delivery
cylinder, patented by Stephen D. Tucker, a member of the firm of
R. Hoe & Co., solved the problem of rapid flat delivery. The
first of these machines was placed in the office of " Lloyd's Weekly
Newspaper," in London, and the first one used in the United States
in the " Tribune " office in New York. There was no limit to
their capacity for printing excepting the ability of the paper to
stand the strain of passing through the press, which produced, when
put to its speed, 18,000 perfect papers an hour, delivered accurately
on one feed-board. The average speed, however, in printing offices
was i 2,000, although in some offices they were run at about 14,000
per hour.
The "Walter" press, made by the London "Times," was
used by it, and also by the London " Daily News" and by the New
York " Times." Further than that it made no progress and has
now gone entirely out of use, the presses of this kind in the Lon-
don " Times " office having been replaced by machines made by
R. Hoe & Co. Meantime their machines were adopted by most
of the large newspapers in the United States and Great Britain.
These new methods, of course, entirely superseded the " Hoe
Type Revolving Machine," which had reigned supreme in the news-
paper world for over twenty years, and of which one hundred and
seventy-five had been made, almost all of which have now disap-
peared.
Up to the middle of the last century the paper had been
47
FIRST HOE WEB PRESS
made from rags, but us these became unobtainable in sufficient quan-
titv some substitute had to be found. First straw and afterwards
wood pulp was successfully employed, and paper made from the latter
is now in universal use. Its cheapness (averaging now about three
cents per pound) materially aided the newspapers, and stimulated the
printing machine manufacturers to renewed efforts in devising presses
of still greater speed and efficiency.
It was desirable also that the papers should be delivered folded
ready for the carrier or mail. The first apparatus to accomplish this
was similar in design to the hand-fed folding machine in common
use in printing offices. The sheets, fed separately into these machines,
were carried by tapes running upon pulleys under striking blades,
which forced them between pairs of folding rollers. After the first
fold they were again carried in a similar manner under striking
blades, placed at right angles to the first, and again struck down
between rollers to receive a second fold. This action was continued
until the desired number of folds had been secured. Folders of this
description were- attached to the fast presses, but none made could
be worked at a greater speed than about 8,000 per hour, until in
1875 Stephen D. Tucker patented a rotating folding cylinder which
folded papers as fast as they came from the press, or 15,000 in the
hour. The striking blade folders were used in the " Bullock" press,
in machines made by C. Potter, Jr., & Co. and others. Andrew
Campbell, a printing press manufacturer, also constructed a rotary
perfecting press, but his devices were not original. Four or
five machines were made by him, and these soon went out
of use.
The first folders made by Hoe & Co. consisted of the combi-
nation of a "gathering cylinder" with a rotary folding cylinder
and tapes conveying the printed sheets under horizontal folding
blades, somewhat similar to those before described, which thrust
them at the proper moment between folding rollers placed at alter-
48
49
FIRST HOE WEB PRESS
nate angles, finally delivering them on travelling belts by a small
flier. The first of these folding machines were put upon the presses
made for the Philadelphia " Times" and operated in the Centennial
Exhibition, in 1876.
These folders, however, were only the commencement of a
long series of experiments undertaken by the makers in the devel-
opment of still faster printing and folding mechanisms, and from
this time forward the progress made has been phenomenal. With
great ingenuity, added to long experience, and by the acquisition
and adaptation of every device which should aid them in their efforts,
Hoe & Co. succeeded in providing machines of unrivalled designs,
efficiency and speed.
About i 876 Messrs. Anthony & Taylor of England (the former
one of the owners of a newspaper in Hereford) took out patents
for devices by which the webs of paper could be turned over after
printing on one side and the opposite or reversed side presented to
the printing cylinder. Mr. Hoe, who was in England at the time,
appreciating the possible use and development of these patents, became
possessed of them for England and the United States.
E. L. Ford, engaged in the publication of a newspaper in New
York, patented the uniting of the product of two or more printing
mechanisms and thus producing (in restricted form) a multiple
number of pages at one time. He was unable, however, to develop
his plans to any practical result ; but deserves the credit of being the
first to patent, if not to conceive, the idea of the association of
printed sheets for this purpose.
In the various experiments of Hoe & Co. bearing upon the
manipulation of webs of paper some of their devices appeared to
encroach upon patents secured by Luther C. Crowell, inventor, of
Boston, who had made an ingenious machine for forming paper bags.
These patents were immediately secured by purchase and the experi-
mental work proceeded with the view of adapting some of them to
DOUBLE SUPPLEMENT PRESS
the requirements of the printing prt After many efforts, and
the failure and destruction of several machines which had been con-
structed at great expense, the Hoe " Double Supplement " machine
was produced, the first one being purchased by James Gordon Ben-
nett of the New York " Herald " and put to work in his office.
The result of these efforts has been, for a third time, a complete
revolution of the methods of fast newspaper printing. The most
remarkable features of this machine are: Its extreme simplicity,
considering the varied work it performs, and its great speed, accuracy
and efficiency. It turns out either four, six, eight, ten or twelve
page papers at 24,000 per hour, and sixteen page papers at 12,000
per hour ; the odd pages being in every case accurately inserted and
pasted in, and the papers cut at top and delivered folded. This
machine is constructed in two parts, the cylinders in one portion being
twice the length of those in the other; the short cylinders being
used for the supplements of the paper when it is desired to print more
than eight pages. The plates being secured on the cylinders, the
paper enters from the two rolls into the two portions of the machine,
through each of which it is carried between the two pairs of type
and impression cylinders, and printed on both sides, after which the
two broad ribbons or "webs" pass over turning bars and other
devices, by which they are laid evenly one over the other, and
pasted together. The webs of paper then pass down upon a triang-
ular " former," which folds them along the center margin. They
are then taken over a cylinder, from which they receive the final
fold, a revolving blade within this cylinder projecting and thrusting
the paper between folding rollers, while at the same moment a knife
in the same cylinder severs the sheet, and a rapidly revolving mech-
anism, resembling in its motion the fingers of a hand, causes their
accurate disposal upon traveling belts, which convey them on for
final removal. From this rather summary description it will be
apparent that the principle of retaining the paper in the web, or unsev-
S 1
53
57
QJJ ADRUPLE PRESS
ered form, up to the final fold and delivery, and performing all
the operations without retarding the onward run of the paper,
effectually prevents chokes or stoppages through any miscarriage
of sheets severed before the folding. Several hundred of these
machines have been made and put in operation by the United States ;
and in offices of the large newspapers in Great Britain and other
countries.
Previous to the introduction of the " Double Supplement "
press, however, Hoe & Co. had made what is known as the " Double
Perfecting" machine. The success of this press, which embraces
substantially the printing and folding devices embodied in the " Double
Supplement " machine, was the connecting link between the ordi-
nary " single " or two-page-wide press and the " Double Supplement "
machine.
The next improvement in fast presses was the construction of
the machine known as the " Quadruple " Newspaper Press. This
was a step in advance of anything heretofore attempted. The
first one was constructed in 1887 and placed in the office of the New
York " World." The same principles were embraced in this as in
the " Double Supplement," but developed to a greater extent. The
supplement portion of the press was increased in width. By means
of ingenious arrangements and manipulation of the webs of paper
this press was made to produce eight-page papers at a running speed
of 48,000 per hour ; also 24,000 per hour of either ten, twelve,
fourteen or sixteen page papers ; all delivered with great exactness
and perfection ; cut at the top, pasted and folded ready for the carrier
or the mails.
Another form of the Double Supplement and Quadruple ma-
chines, embodying substantially the same principles, is what has
been termed the "straight-line" press. In this form of construc-
tion the cylinders are arranged in horizontal rows, or tiers, one
above the other, there being two pairs of cylinders in each tier,
59
SEXTUPLE PRESS
with the folding and delivery apparatus at the end of the machine.
Some of these presses, made under the patent of Joseph L. Finn,
and which belong to R. Hoe & Co., have been constructed.
It was thought that the limit of printing capacity in one
machine had been reached in this new invention, but in 1889 the
same firm undertook the task of constructing a machine for Mr.
Bennett of the " New York Herald," which would even eclipse the
" Quadruple" machine, which had, together with the " Double Sup-
plement " press, superseded almost all others in the large offices of
the United States, as well as in Great Britain and Australia. The
press made for the " New York Herald " and known as the " Sex-
tuple " machine, occupied about eighteen months in construction.
It is composed of about sixteen thousand pieces. The general
arrangement differs entirely from that of the "Quadruple " machine.
The form and impression cylinders are all placed parallel, instead of
any being at right angles as in the "Quadruple " and " Double Sup-
plement " Presses. To give an idea of this machine, we cannot do
better than to quote the description of it in the " New York Herald "
of May loth, 1891.
" The new Hoe press which is being set up in the ' Herald ,'
Building is nothing less than a miracle of mechanism. To say
that it is the only one of the kind ever built and that it throws all
previous inventions into the background are facts which the follow-
ing figures abundantly prove.
" Its consumption of white paper is so astounding that even the
imagination grows tired and sits down to catch its breath. It is fed
from three rolls, each being more than five feet wide. When it
settles down to show its best work it will use up in one hour nearly
twenty-six miles of this paper, or to make the matter more signifi-
cant, it will use up about fifty-two miles of paper the ordinary width
of the * Herald ' every sixty minutes.
" Our readers will be startled to learn that it can print and fold
60
SEXTUPLE PRESS
ninety thousand four-page * Heralds ' in an hour. This is, to the
mind, which is not versed in the problem of rapid printing, a feat
which makes Aladdin's lamp an old woman's fable. Ninety thou-
sand per hour means fifteen hundred copies per minute, or twenty-
five copies for every second of time ticked by the clock in Trinity's
steeple.
" It is, of course, the last and best result of modern invention
the highest attainment of genius at the present time.
" This new press will print, cut, paste, fold, count and deliver
72,000 eight-page ' Heralds ' in one hour, which is equivalent to
1,200 a minute and 20 a second.
" It will print, cut, paste, fold, count and deliver complete 48,000
ten or twelve-page ' Heralds ' in one hour, which is equivalent to
800 a minute and a fraction over i 3 a second.
" It will print, cut, paste, fold, count and deliver complete 36,000
sixteen-page ' Heralds ' an hour, which is at the rate of 600 a
minute or 10 a second.
"It will print, cut, paste, fold, count and deliver complete
24,000 fourteen, twenty or twenty-four page ' Heralds ' an hour,
which is at the rate of 400 a minute, or very nearly seven a second.
"This is lightning work with a vengeance and yet it is possible
that there may be some who read this who will live to call it slow.
That will probably be when they have found out all about how to
put a harness on electricity. No one can predict when inventive
genius will reach its limit in the printing press. But for the present
this new press marks high water mark.
" Before this press was built the fastest presses in the world
were Hoe's 'Quadruple' Presses, of which the * Herald' has two.
These presses turn out 48,000 four, six or eight-page papers an hour,
24,000 ten, twelve, fourteen or sixteen-page papers an hour, and
1 2,000 twenty or twenty-four-page papers an hour, all cut, pasted
and folded.
63
SEXTUPLE PRESS
"This new press has a well-nigh insatiable appetite for white
paper. To satisfy it, it is fed from three rolls at the same time, one
roll being attached at either end of the press and the third suspended
near the center. It is the only press that has ever been able to
accomplish that feat. Each roll is sixty-three inches wide, or twice
the width of the * Herald.' When doing its best this press will
consume 25 7 * miles of sixty-three-inch-wide paper equivalent to
51 ^4 miles of paper the width of the '- Herald' in one hour, and
eject it at the two deliveries in the shape of * Heralds,' each copy
containing an epitome of the news of the world for the preceding
twenty-four hours, and each copy cut, pasted and folded ready for
delivery to the * Herald ' readers. It is a sight worth seeing to
see it done. Certainly we know of nothing else which affords such
a striking example of the triumph of mechanical genius.
" A man turns a lever, shafts and cylinders begin to revolve,
the whirring noise settles into a steady roar, you see three streams
of white paper pouring into the machine from the three huge rolls,
and you pass around to the other side it is literally snowing news-
papers at each of the two delivery outlets. So fast does one paper
follow the other that you catch only a momentary glitter from the
deft steel fingers that seize the papers and cast them out.
" The machine weighs about fifty-eight tons. It is massive
and strong, with the strength of a thousand giants. And yet
though its arms are of steel and its motions are all as rapid as light-
ning, its touch is as tender as that of a woman when she carries her
babe. How else does the machine avoid tearing the paper ? It
tears very readily, as you often ascertain accidentally when turning
over the leaves. Truly wonderful it is, and mysterious to anybody
but an expert, how this huge machine can make newspapers at the
rate of twenty-five a second without rending the paper all to shreds.
" It has six plate cylinders, each cylinder carrying eight stereo-
type plates, which represent eight pages of the ' Herald,' and six
SEXTUPLE PRESS
impression cylinders. These cylinders, when the press is working
at full speed make 200 revolutions a minute. The period of con-
tact between the paper and the plate cylinders is therefore incon-
ceivably brief, and how in that fractional space of time a perfect
impression is made, even to the reproduction of such fine lines as
are shown in these illustrations, is one of those things which, to
the man who is not 'up' in mechanics, must forever remain a
mystery. But that it does it you know, because you have the evi-
dence of your own eyes
" A double folder forms part of this machine. A single folder
would not be equal to the task imposed upon it. As it is, this
double folder has to exercise such celerity to keep up with the
streams of printed paper that descend upon it that its operations are
too quick for the eye to follow.
"The press has two delivery outlets. At each the papers are
automatically counted in piles of fifty. No matter how rapidly the
papers come out, there is never a mistake in the count. It is as sure
as fate. By an ingenious contrivance if I should attempt to
describe it more definitely most people would be none the wiser
each fiftieth paper is shoved out an inch beyond the others that
have been dropped onto the receiving tapes, thus serving as a sort of
tally mark.
"Truly it is a marvelous machine this Sextuple press. No-
where will you find a more perfect adaption of means to ends;
nowhere in any branch of industry a piece of mechanism which
offers a finer example of what human skill and ingenuity is capable
of. And it is free from that reproach which is sometimes brought
against the greatest triumph of inventive genius in other depart-
ments of human activity that they make mere automatons out of
human beings.
" The printing press is synonymous with progress, with the
diffusion of knowledge and the spread of ideas. Without the great
65
APPLETON ROTARY HOOK PRESS
improvements that have been made in it within the memory of
many men now living the modern newspaper, the best friend of
liberty, and the greatest toe of tyranny, would be an impossibility.
It has more than kept pace with the advancement in other depart-
ments of industry. In 1829 the Washington Hand Press was
introduced and regarded as quite a mechanical triumph. At its In-xt
it printed 250 impressions an hour on one side, or i 25 complete
newspapers of insignificant dimensions. Now, a little over sixty
years later, a machine is brought out which, when the number of
papers alone is compared, does 150 times as much work in the same
time, and which, if the comparison is extended to the actual amount
of printing done, does over 2,000 times as much work."
About 1871 a machine called the "Prestonian" was made by
Foster, a machinist of Preston, England, and two or three were
set to work, but did not enjoy any great degree of favor. They
embodied a combination of the "Hoe Type Revolving Machine"
with the "endless sheet perfecting press." The form of type for
one side of the paper was placed upon one cylinder, with impression
cylinders around it, in the manner of the Hoe press, and the form
for the other side on another cylinder, and the paper passed from
one set of impression cylinders to the other. The principal objec-
tion to this machine was its lack of speed. The same principle,
however, had been developed years before in the "type revolving
perfecting" presses (made by Hoe & Co.) which have two sets of
type forms on separate large cylinders, the sheets being fed in by
hand and conveyed from one impression cylinder to the other and
against the forms by means of fingers or grippers. The sheets were
then delivered on a sheet flier. These presses were especially de-
signed for printing books, of which large numbers were required,
such as text books and spelling books. The contents of a whole
book could be placed on these cylinders and printed and delivered
at one impression. One of these machines constructed in 1852
66
ROTARY TYPE-REVOLVING WEB PRESS
(fifty years ago) is still in operation at Messrs. D. Appleton & Co.'s
printing office in Brooklyn, as active and efficient as ever.
In 1 88 1 Hoe & Co. turned their attention to the making of a
machine which should print FROM ONE FORM OF TYPE at a greater
speed than had ever yet been attained. The result was the "Ro-
tary Type Endless-sheet Perfecting Press." The principle of this
ROTARY TYPE-REVOLVING WEB PERFECTING PRESS
machine was in a measure that of their "Type-Revolving" press.
The forms of type for both sides of the paper were placed on a
central cylinder, which was surrounded by impression cylinders and
inking rollers.
There, were, however, no feeders and no grippers. The roll of
paper was placed at the end of the press, passed around the impres-
sion cylinders arranged at one side of the form cylinder, and then
turned upside down at the lower part of the machine, thence being
carried upwards. The opposite or unprinted side was presented in
turn between each impression cylinder and the forms. If fourimpres-
ROTARY TYPE-REVOLVING WEB PRESS
sion cylinders were placed around the central cylinder then at each
revolution of the latter four. perfect papers were printed. It eight
impression cylinders were placed around the central cylinder then
eight perfect papers were printed at one revolution of the main or
form cylinder. The speed attained by this machine with four impres-
sion cylinders was about i 2,000 per hour, and from machines with
eight impression cylinders 24,000 copies per hour were printed.
This press was especially adapted for afternoon papers when the time
or expense necessarily involved in stereotyping could not be afforded.
The majority of the machines made were provided with four impres-
sion cylinders only. In the machines with eight impression cylinders
two rolls were used, one at either end of the machine, the paper
from each roll passing under the two first impression cylinders on
either side, each web then being turned over, and paper passed be-
tween the two remaining cylinders on either side to print the oppo-
site sides of the sheets.
In this machine a folding apparatus was placed at each end to
receive the product of the rolls, but in the machine with four impres-
sion cylinders only one folder was placed, at the end of the machine
opposite that at which the paper entered.
The experience gained in the construction of these fast news-
paper machines, and the accumulation of patented devices entering
into them, which were numbered by the score, had their influence
in the improvements which were made upon presses for the printing
of weekly newspapers, periodicals and magazines.
In 1888 was introduced a patented Hoe machine called the
"Three-page-wide Press." It has a capacity of printing, perfecting
and delivering two-page papers, with one fold, at the rate of 60,000
per hour ; four-page papers, with two folds, at 24,000 per hour, six-
page papers at 24,000 per hour; eight-page papers, folded twice, or to
carrier size, at I 2,000 per hour, and twelve-page papers, folded in
the same manner as the eight-page, at the same speed, viz., I 2,000
70
THREE-PAGE WIDE PRESS
per hour; all the supplement sheets being inset and pasted if de-
sired.
The prominent features of this machine are :
The outside pages may receive the first or the last impression
THREE PAGE WIDE PRESS
at will, thus enabling large cuts and other similar work to be printed
without offset.
Grippers and horizontal folding knives and all tapes but short
leaders are done away with in the delivery and folding mechanisms,
the movements being all rotary.
The press occupies but a small space on the floor, being
6 feet i inch high, 8 feet wide and 1 5 feet 5 inches long
over all.
In 1889 Hoe & Co. constructed a patented perfecting machine
in which the plates, or forms, for both sides are placed upon one
cylinder, one side of the form of matter being placed upon one end,
THREE- PAGE \\IDK PRESS
or half of the cylinder, and the other side upon the opposite portion
of the cylinder. One imprevion cylinder only is used, and the
inking apparatus is greatly extended. This machine is remarkable
for the great variety of work it will do. At a high rate of speed,
sheets of eight, sixteen, twenty-four and so on up to ninety-six or
one hundred and twenty-eight pages may be printed and delivered
folded in either I 2mo, 8vo, 410 or folio sizes, ready for the binder.
The press does the work of ten flat-bed cylinder presses and ten
hand-feed folding machines. The paper is supplied to the machine
from the roll, and after printing passes over the "former" into the
folding machine, where the folding and cutting cylinders produce
the required number of pages in the form desired. Curved electro-
types are now made successfully and this press was the first to
bring the printing of the average book and catalogue within the
range of web press work. While in general principles this machine
is similar to the large newspaper perfecting presses, though very
much smaller in bulk, it has increased facilities for distribution, and
finer adjustments throughout. The plates admit of underlays and
overlays the same as on a flat-bed press. There are no tapes, the
folding being done on rollers and small cylinders without smutting
the printing. In the folding apparatus there are knives which cut
the sheet into the right size for folding, after which they are au-
tomatically delivered counted in lots of fifty each. The speed on a
thirty-two page form is about 16,000 copies per hour. This style
of machine is probably destined to revolutionize book and pamph-
let printing, as it combines the finest construction and facility of
operation with the greatest speed.
In 1886 a further advance was made toward perfection in the
rotary system of printing as adapted to doing fine work, in the construc-
tion for Theodore L. De Vinne, the printer of the " Century" Maga-
zine, by Hoe & Co., of a perfecting press to do the plain
forms of that periodical. The machine was described in the
7*
NEWSPAPER AND PAMPHLET PRESS
NEWSPAPER AND PAMPHLET PRESS
magazine, in an article written by Mr. De Vinne, here quoted
from:
(Extract from article published in the u Century" Magazine, November, 1890.)
"At the end of a long row of machinery stands the web press
a massive and complicated construction, especially built by Hoe &
Co. for printing, cutting and folding the plain and advertising pages
of the * Century.' Web presses for newspapers are common enough,
but this press has distinction as the first, and for three years the only,
web press used in this country, for good book work. At one end
of the machine is a great roll of paper more than two miles long
when unwound, and weighing about 750 pounds. As the paper un-
winds it passes first over a jet of steam which slightly dampens and
softens its hard surface and fits it for receiving impressions, without
leaving it wet or sodden. It passes under a plate cylinder, on which
are thirty-two curved plates, inked by seven large rollers, which print
thirty-two pages on one side. Then it passes around a reversing cyl-
NEWSPAPER AND PAMPHLET P R K S S
inder which presents the other side ot" the paper to another plate cyl-
inder, on which are thirty-two plates which print exactly on the back
the proper pages for the thirty-two previously printed. ThU i* done
quickly in less than two seconds but with exactness. But the web
ot" paper is still uncut. To do this it is drawn upward under a small
cylinder containing a concealed knife, which cuts the printed web in
strips two leave> wide and four leaves long. As soon as cut the sheets
are thrown forward on endless belts of tape. An ingenious but unde-
tectable mechanism gives to every alternate sheet a quicker move-
ment, so that it falls exactly over its predecessor, making two lapped
strips of paper. Busy little adjusters now come in play, placing these
lapped sheets of paper accurately up to a head and a side guide.
Without an instant of delay down comes a strong creasing blade over
the long center of the sheet, and pushes it out of sight. Pulleys at
once seize the creased sheet and press it flat, in which shape it is
hurried forward to meet three circular knives on one shaft, which
cut it across in four equal pieces. Disappearing for an instant from
view, it comes out on the other side of the upper end of the tail of
the press in the form of four folded sections of eight pages each.
Immediately after, at the lower end of the tail of the press, out come
four entirely different sections of eight pages each. This duplicate
delivery shows the product of the press to be at every revolution of
the cylinder sixty-four pages, neatly printed, truly cut, and accurately
registered and folded, ready for the binder. Two boys are kept fully
employed in seizing the folded sections and putting them in box
trucks, by which they are rolled out to the elevator, and on these sent
to the bindery. This web press is not so fast as the web press of
daily newspapers, but it performs more operations and does more accur-
ate work. It is not a large machine, nor is it noisy, nor does it seem
to be moving fast, but the paper goes through the cylinders at
the rate of nearly two hundred feet a minute. It does ten times
as much work as the noisier and more bustling presses by its side."
74
ROTARY ART PRESS
The success of this perfecting press induced the makers to de-
vise a machine on the rotary principle adapted for the finest kind of
illustrations in short, to make a press which should do work as fine
as it was possible to do on the hand press or the stop cylinder. The
result was the setting up, in 1890, at the De Vinne Press, of a
ROTARY ART PRESS
machine known as the " Rotary Art " press. This machine is
described in the "Century" of November, 1890, as follows:
" Sixty-four plates of the ' Century,' truly bent to the proper curve,
are firmly fastened on one cylinder sixty inches long, and about
thirty inches in diameter; sixteen inking rollers, supplied with ink
from two fountains, successfully ink these sixty-four plates with a
delicacy and yet with a fullness of color never before attained. The
shafts of the impression cylinder and the plate cylinders, 4^ inches
in diameter, do not give or spring under the strongest impression.
75
"TIT- BITS" PRESS
Although rigid in every part, in the hands of an expert pressman it
can be made responsive to the slightest overlay. This machine is
fed by four feeders from single sheets in the usual manner, and does
the work of four stop cylinders in superior style. The gain in
performance is not as great as the gain in quality of presswork, but
quality was considered more than speed. The performance of the
machine could have been more than doubled by adding to it other
cylinders which would print on both sides of the paper; but careful
experiment has proved that the finest woodcuts cannot be properly
printed with this rapidity. To get the best results the ink on one
side of the paper must be dry before it is printed on the other side."
Among the most interesting modern printing machines are
those constructed by Hoe & Co. at their London works, after draw-
ings and patterns sent from New York, for weekly English jour-
nals, such as "Tit-Bits," "Sunday Stories," and similar periodicals.
These machines embody to a certain extent the principles of the
"Double Supplement" press before referred to. Double sets of
plates are placed upon the main machine, which is capable of
taking on an aggregate of twenty-four pages; and by using nar-
rower rolls the number of pages of the body of the journal may
be reduced to sixteen or twenty, so that the publisher may have
the option of printing his paper either sixteen, twenty or twenty-four
pages. In addition to this it prints a cover on a different colored paper,
and all at the rate of 24,000 copies per hour; the whole product, in-
cluding the cover, being cut on the edges and pasted together at the
back. The supplement or cover of the press portion, however, instead
of having two pairs of cylinders, as in the "Double Supplement"
machine, consists of one form cylinder and one impression cylinder.
This portion of the machine prints the cover, which is fed from a
narrower roll, and, as before stated, of an entirely different color
or quality of paper from the body of the journal. The form for one
side of the cover is placed on one end of the form cylinder, and
76
77
79
OCTUPLE PRESS
that for th^ other side on the other end of the cylinder. This
ingenious combination results in the printing of one cover to every
copy of the journal issued and no more.
The demand for printed matter seems to increase with the
ability to furnish it, and much attention is now being directed to
the subject of color printing on the rotary system. From present
appearances, and from the enterprise displayed by the publisher, the
artist and the press maker, it would seem as though the day is not
far distant when this subject alone would furnish matter for a new
chapter in the history of the printing press.
It is very difficult to give in a short article even a summary of
the various kinds of machines to print newspapers of various sizes,
in black as well as in colors, weekly periodicals, magazines, books,
pamphlets, in short every class of printing, in connection with fold-
ing, which have been evolved and perfected up to the present time.
The work still goes on, one step in advance leading to another, until
now a printer can obtain a great variety of machines to print from
the roll or fed from separate sheets, and which, especially in the
production of large numbers, economize both time and labor. Nor
is this constant advance in mechanical construction confined to the
machines themselves or the manipulation of the paper. It extends
to the manufacture of the paper and the inks, although the manu-
facturers of the latter have not advanced in the same proportion as
the paper-maker, who every year produces finer paper in the roll
and in greater quantities than ever before.
The latest and most elaborate newspaper machine is the Oc-
tuple Perfecting Press with Folders, which prints from four rolls,
each four pages wide, and gives (from the four deliveries) a running
speed per hour of: 96,000 4, 6 or 8-page papers; 72,000 ro-page
papers; 60,000 1 2-page papers; 48,000 14 or 1 6-page papers;
42,000 1 8-page papers; 36,000 2o-page papers; 24,000 24-page
papers.
li
DOUBLE SEXTUPLE PRESS
This machine has been further developed into the Improved
Combination Octuple (or Double Quadruple) and Color Machine,
lately patented by R. Hoe 6c Co., which, in addition to giving the
above mentioned output when printing in black only, will also pro-
duce papers in colors at the rate per hour of: 96,000 4-pages ;
48,0006, 8, 10, 12, 1 4 or i 6 pages; 24,000 18, 20, 24 or 28 pages.
R. Hoe & Co. have now in process of construction four mam-
moth printing machines, which will give a greater product and a
greater variety of products than any machines that have hitherto
been devised. Thev are Double Sextuple Presses and so called,
but in reality are much more than this, inasmuch as they combine
the ability to do printing in colors as well as in black. This machine
is composed, so to speak, of two separate, complete printing me-
chanisms, each fed from three four-page-wide rolls of paper; the
apparatus for the gathering and folding of these webs of paper after
printing being in the centre between the two sections of the ma-
chine. The "formers" and folders (placed back to back) enable
a manipulation or gathering of the webs which could not be readily
obtained in any other way. All these devices and methods have
been patented by Hoe & Co. The following is a summary descrip-
tion of these new machines and what they will accomplish. The
two sections may be used separately if desired, as independent ma-
chines.
Each of the two portions of the machine is composed of six
pairs of cylinders, arranged, with their axles parallel, in three tiers
of two pairs each and printing on both sides (or perfecting) three
webs of paper from separate rolls, each four -pages wide. One of the
sections is also arranged so that all six sets of cylinders will print
upon a single web in colors and black, this web being associated
with the three webs from the other portion to form a colored cover
for the products, when required.
The rolls of paper are placed at the end of the machine
81
DOUBLE SEXTUPLE PRESS
three at each end and the two folders tor each portion are placed
back to back midway in the length of the machine. The runs of
all the webs are therefore approximately the same and as short as it
is possible to have them a matter of much importance in the
running of multiple webs.
Altogether there are twelve plate cylinders in the machine,
each carrying eight plates the size of a newspaper page. Either
stereotype or electrotype plates may be used. To receive the latter,
which are much thinner than stereotype plates, special base or jacket
plates are secured to the cylinders. The ink is applied to the plates
by four form rollers, after having been thoroughly distributed by
vibrating rollers and cylinders.
The full capacity of the machine, when printing all black, on
six rolls, is 96,000 twelve-page papers per hour, and other numbers
of pages at proportionate speeds, namely, four, six, eight and ten-
page papers, at the same speed as twelve-page ; fourteen and sixteen-
page papers at 72,000 per hour ; eighteen, twenty, twenty-two and
twenty-four page papers at 48,000 per hour. The three webs from
each portion of the machine are led to the top of the folders, where
they are divided along their centre line into webs two pages wide,
and then run down each of the four " formers," by which they are
folded along their centre. They are then led through cylinders
which cut them into page lengths and give them a fold across the
page to half-page size. In this way twenty-four page papers may
be obtained at the rate of 48,000 copies per hour, by collecting two
twelve-page sections on the cylinder just before the half-page fold
is made. Another method of running twenty-four page papers is.
to associate the six webs, from both portions of the machine, and
run them over one pair of " formers," thus folding all six webs
together, or insetting them, in the first fold.
Lesser number of pages may be obtained by making various
combinations, the number of which is almost limitless. Angle bars
85
DOUBLE SEXTUPLE PRE>>
are placed in the machine tor transferring halt-width webs of paper
from one side of the pros to the otlier, facilitating these combina-
tions.
The maximum product of the machine when running as a
color press is 48,000 sixteen-page papers per hour, with the two
outside pages printed in four colors and black ; the other pages in
black only. If, however, it is not desired to have so many colors on
the outside pages, it is possible to obtain twenty-page papers, at the
rate of 48,000 per hour, with the two outside pages in two colors
and black ; all the other pages in black only. Papers with any
number of pages from four to sixteen, with four colors and black on
the outside pages, the other pages in black only, can be obtained at
a speed of 48,000 per hour. By running the full product of the
color section of the machine into one folder and associating there-
with webs of paper from the other section of the machine, papers
with any number of pages from eight to twenty-four, with the two
outside pages and two of the inside pages printed in four colors and
black, the other pages in black only, can be produced at a speed of
24,000 per hour.
The dimensions of this machine are as follows: Length, 35
feet; height, 17 feet; width, 9 feet; the weight, about 225,000
pounds ; and the number of parts of which it is composed, approx-
imately 50,000.
The last three or four years have also witnessed an immense
advance in the art of color printing. The magazine without an elab-
orate color cover, or perhaps colored illustrations, is now an excep-
tion, whereas it was the reverse not long ago. After satisfactory
experiments it was ascertained by the writer that, with the inks prop-
erly prepared, and suitable plates to print from, colors could be printed
almost simultaneously upon the paper, without mingling ; in short
that the supposed necessity, in much of the work done, of drying the
sheets after the impression of each color on the paper, was not necessary
86
DOUBLE SEXTUPLE PRESS
for the production of a good quality of printing. Further experiments
also proved the mechanical possibility of obtaining most accurate
register in printing from a roll and that the number of impressions,
or colors, could be increased to advantage. These various experi-
ments resulted in the construction by Hoe & Co. of color presses
which were almost simultaneously installed by the proprietors of the
New York "Herald" and the New York "World," who com-
menced the publication of colored supplements, upon a system which
has been adopted by the papers in most of the large cities, and which
they have never discontinued. The practicability of printing in colors
has been so fully demonstrated that color attachments are being added
to very many of the large newspaper presses throughout the
country.
The most extensive of the color presses, and the largest print-
ing machine ever constructed, is the color press made by Hoe & Co.
for the New York "Journal" and now used in printing portions of the
Sunday editions of that paper, although others of approximate pro-
portions and capacity have been made for the New York " World,"
the New York " Herald," the Chicago " Tribune," the Boston
" Post " and other newspapers. This machine gives as many as eleven
separate impressions, or colors, on a single copy of the paper; that
is, it will print in six colors on one side of the sheet and five on the
other, or it may be arranged to print three colors on one side and six
on the other, giving a speed of about i 6,000 eight-page papers an
hour, or at every revolution of the cylinders the equivalent of two
perfect eight-page papers printed in colors. Four, six, eight, ten,
twelve, fourteen, sixteen, twenty, twenty-four, twenty-eight or thirty-
two-page papers may be printed on this machine, as required, from
one, two or three double-width (or four-page-wide) rolls of paper.
It will also produce magazine forms (with pages half the size of
those of the regular issue of the paper) at from 16,000 to 24,000
an hour, either 16, 20, 24, 28, 32, 40 or 48 pages, delivered folded,
8?
COLLIER'S WEEKLY PRESS
cut, and automatically wire-stitched, with all the pages printed in
colors or half-tones.
Such a development of the art of printing, especially in colors,
in which accurate register is not only necessary, but must be main-
tained, would have seemed incredible a few years ago, but this is
now a daily occurrence and many newspaper offices produce colored
supplements in the same manner and with the same results, having
additions placed upon their quadruple, sextuple and other presses for
the purpose.
Nor has this development of colors been confined entirely to
the demands of the newspaper world. It is gradually finding its
way into the weekly periodical and the monthly magazines. It had
been considered impossible to print half-tone illustrations on both
sides of the sheet at one operation and deliver them flat, without
smutting. Not only has this difficulty been overcome, but in the
latest presses, such as used by Collier's Weekly, the finest half-tone work
is done on a perfecting press printing on a roll of paper. The periodi-
cal is printed in multiple pages, as required, and delivered from the
machine folded, cut apart and pasted, ready for the binder. It is
not desirable, of course, when using fine inks, to make immediate
delivery from the press ; therefore the papers, after having been per-
fected, folded and pasted, are left to stand for some hours before
they are distributed to the readers. Satisfactory methods of doing
this have also been devised. The capacity for printing fine half-
tone illustrations on a rotary press having thus been demonstrated
the next step is evidently the production of colored half-tones, and
the time is undoubtedly near at hand when the monthly magazine
as well as the weekly periodical will appear, instead of in black half-
tones, now so popular, with these same illustrations printed in the
most delicate manner in colors and all delivered in perfection from
rotary presses, folded in entirety, or in signatures, ready for the
binder.
88
8 9
THE PRINTING PRESS
It must now be evident to every experienced observer that the
time has arrived when printing upon the rotary system will in a
large measure supersede that now done upon flat-bed cylinder
presses, although the latter will always be retained for some kinds
of work. Satisfactory methods will be devised for attaching upon
the cylinders electrotype or stereotype plates of varying sizes. In
addition to this, new and improved methods are constantly being
brought forward for the transferring of type forms, photographs
and illustrations of every description, upon prepared sheets of metal,
which receive the ink and give impressions either from a raised
surface, as in the ordinary letter-press printing, or in the manner
of lithographic printing. These and other new methods of mak-
ing plates will undoubtedly lead in the future to great economy, as
well as to important improvements in the process of printing.
ROBERT HOE.
FROM MEDAL BY SCHARFF
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